


The First Christmas

by ellethesnail



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Evan Hansen has Autism and/or ADHD pass it on, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellethesnail/pseuds/ellethesnail
Summary: Christmas is harder to celebrate when there's a missing person in all of the places. This year, Evan is left to face the holiday without his dad, and Heidi is left to learn what her son really needs to hear.
Relationships: Evan Hansen & Heidi Hansen
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	The First Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daydreaming_everyday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreaming_everyday/gifts).



> My contribution for the Sincerely Us holiday gift exchange on tumblr, for @daydreaming-everyday! The minute I read the prompt about Evan and Heidi celebrating Christmas for the first time without Evan's dad, I knew I wanted to try my hand at writing something. I hope you enjoy!

Evan knew Christmas was coming, but he didn’t realize it was suddenly so soon. In the midst of Jared’s birthday and the last few days of second grade before break, he’d just forgotten.

Or, maybe forgotten wasn’t the right word. Avoided thinking about his favorite holiday was probably a more accurate description. And with his mom so busy working late and leaving him at the Kleinmans’ until she got home, it wasn’t like they’d had much time to celebrate Advent together anyway.

But today, almost a month late, he finally flipped over the next page of his dinosaur calendar and there it was in bright green text: Christmas, December 25th, four days away. He frowned at the calendar. Maybe if he flipped the page back to November, maybe if he pulled his curtains closed against the snow outside and ignored the crooked tree set up downstairs and kept his eyes clamped shut until December 26th, Christmas might just evaporate. He knew it was a silly thought, obviously, but as he stared at _Christmas!_ scribbled on his calendar, he desperately wished it could work.

He wasn’t sure how long the staring contest with his calendar lasted, but the rumble of his stomach forced him to face the fact that today was a day requiring breakfast like any other. Unfortunately, the whole hiding-in-his-room plan wasn’t going to work if he didn’t have food. Reluctantly, he pulled on his favorite Spider-Man hoodie and trundled downstairs.

Today was a Saturday, one of the few days his mom wasn’t gone at work. She usually slept in later than he did on her days off, but before he reached the bottom of the stairs he could see she was already awake, perched on the couch with her laptop open, looking intently at whatever was on the screen. She had a notepad balanced on one knee and her open wallet on the other as she typed and scrolled. The room was silent aside from the rhythmic clicking of the laptop keys and a huff of frustration that she let out as she rubbed at her eyes. He stood there for a minute, fiddling with a garland of tinsel draped across the railing.

“Mom?” he finally said, just above a murmur. He pushed the word out into the silence even though he wanted to swallow it like a sour candy and run back up to his room and lock the door..

His mom’s head snapped up and she quickly shut the laptop. “Yes, honey?” When he didn’t answer, she prodded, “What’s the matter?”

“Are we . . .” He tangled the tinsel around his fingers and bobbed one foot against the railing as if he could spell out morse code instead of having to talk. “Are we still gonna have Christmas this year?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because . . . because Dad isn’t . . .”

“Oh, Evan.” It was her it’s-gonna-be-okay voice, the kind she used when he came back from school with tears in his eyes because he couldn’t bring himself to talk during show-and-tell. “Evan, honey, come here.” She slid the laptop, notepad, and wallet onto the coffee table and patted the space on the couch beside her.

He reluctantly left the tinsel behind and crossed the living room, climbed onto the couch, and curled up against his mom. Her sweater was soft against his cheek so he burrowed into it, letting her stroke his hair as he felt her take a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh.

“Yes, we’re still going to have Christmas. I know things are different now that Dad’s gone, but we can still have lots of fun! What would you like to do?”

Evan kept his face buried in his mom’s sweater as snapshots of their holiday traditions ran through his head like a reel in his viewfinder toy.

“We can go to the big hill and go sledding,” his mom offered, rattling off suggestions. “Or we could go to the mall like we always do, get your favorite hot cocoa and go window-shopping and everything, or go ice skating at the rink, or go look at the Christmas lights around town . . .”

Evan squeezed his eyes shut, balling his mom’s sweater in his fists as he pressed his face against them.

“No,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the sweater. Tears pricked his eyes so he squeezed them even harder.

“No?”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want Christmas.”

“Oh Evan, of course you want Christmas. Come on.” His mom pried the sweater from his fingers. “Let’s go window-shopping at the mall, okay? That’ll make you feel better. It’ll be good to get out of the house, be around other people––you’ve been cooped up inside ever since school let out. We can look at all the toys in the windows, and if you’re good, we could even check the pet store to look at the fish. You’d like that, right?”

Evan was not convinced, but his mom was smiling at him so earnestly. _Please like it,_ her eyes seemed to say. _Please just feel better._

She had looked so stressed earlier, staring at her laptop with her hair falling in her face and her notepad filled with scribbles. Maybe if he just went along, if he liked it and felt better and was _okay_ , she’d be okay too.

He gave her a little nod.

Her face lit up. “Perfect, honey. Oh, this will be fun.”

Evan wasn’t so sure, but he offered her a smile anyway.

––––

Evan was even less sure once he stepped through the mall’s sliding doors into a bustling sea of Christmas chaos.

Holiday music blared over the speakers, blurring with the loud chatter of shoppers and agonizing squeaks of snowy shoes against the shiny floor. Giant Christmas ornaments hung from the ceiling, tinsel covered the entryway columns, and strings of lights flashed from red to green in lines across the storefronts.

“Evan?” His mom’s voice sounded a tiny bit annoyed, like she’d repeated herself before and he hadn’t noticed. “I said, where do you want to go first?”

He hesitated a minute, trying to hear his thoughts over the noise around them. “Hot cocoa,” he finally answered determinedly.

He stuck tightly near his mom as they entered the swarm of shoppers. Everyone crowded close––they kept talking in Evan’s ears as they passed, bumping against his shoulders and blocking his view with their big bags and puffy coats. Everything pressed against his senses––his own coat felt too thick and suffocating against his hot skin and the tongue of his left sneaker itched against the top of his foot and his mom’s shoes kept squeaking with every bouncy step she took. He gritted his teeth and grabbed his mom’s hand to keep from getting swept away in the stream of people.

A loud clanging broke through the waves of noise. A strange man dressed like Santa stood in front of a toy shop, ringing a bell and grinning wide.

“Hey there, buddy!” he called when he saw Evan. “What do you want for Christmas?”

Evan pressed against his mom.

“What do you want?” she prompted. She nudged him out from behind her and gave a cheery smile in the direction of the bearded man.

Evan wanted his dad to scoop him up and swing him onto his shoulders so he was up above all the crowds and clamor, so strangers wouldn’t ring their bells and try to talk to him because he’d be safe a head above it all. He wanted his dad to keep him company in the pet store after they got tired of the people so his mom could finish up the shopping. He wanted his dad to turn around in the driveway, to walk back through the front door, to never have left in the first place. He wanted his dad _back_.

He didn’t dare give that answer to a stranger in a stupid suit, of course, but even if he did, the words wouldn’t come out. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with snow and it wouldn’t melt no matter how hard he tried to swallow it down.

His mom kept smiling at him, a bit more pointedly now, and he wanted to answer her, he wanted to talk and laugh and be _normal_ and he was sorry he couldn’t, sorry he couldn’t push words out into the air to jostle against all the other words crowding around his ears. He was sorry he was so _broken_ and suddenly there were tears in his eyes and he was sorry for those too but he couldn’t do anything as they blurred his vision and dripped down his cheeks as he hid behind his mom like a _baby_ , a baby that couldn’t speak or stop crying or _move_ as he stood frozen because even moving felt like too much, felt too––

“Evan––Evan!”

His mom was on her knees in front of him, gripping his hands in both of hers. There was so much worry in her eyes and he was sorry for that too––

“Evan, look at me.”

He blinked, and only now did he realize that he was gasping for breath.

“I . . . I _want hot cocoa,_ ” he whispered, anger edging his words. He didn’t want the lights or the noise or the stranger with his loud bell and messy questions. He just wanted a cup of hot chocolate like his dad bought him every year and that’s all he had _said_ he wanted but his mom hadn’t listened and maybe he _should_ want more, maybe he should want to look in all the windows and talk to all the people but he _didn’t_ ––

“Hey, hey, okay. It’s okay, sweetheart.” His mom was wiping at his tears, still tightly holding his hand in one of hers as she cleaned his face with the other. “Take a deep breath, okay?”

Evan obeyed, holding it in while his mom counted to five, and then slowly letting it out again.

“Good job. You’re gonna be okay.” She squeezed his hand. The pressure felt nice, like he was connected to something outside of the whirling thoughts in his head. “Let’s get you some hot cocoa.”

Evan didn’t remember much of what happened next. The garish lights and decorations streaked and bled together in his still-teary vision. He couldn’t hear much of the noise anymore, but that was because he couldn’t hear much of anything. The world had become hazy and far away. At this point it was a welcome relief. Sometimes he liked being a ghost, floating like a cloud above all the sharp things that attacked his senses. He didn’t notice they had reached the holiday booth until his mom was handing him a to-go cup, a swirl of whipped cream peaking through the opening in the lid.

“There. Hot cocoa,” she said, tousling his messy brown hair.

The cup was comfortingly warm against his fingers. He took a sip, and the warmth trickled down his throat and seeped into his chest and slowly brought him back to reality.

She let him drink in silence for a few moments before asking, “You feeling better? Do you want to try looking around again?”

“I want to go home.”

His mom let out a little sigh, and he couldn’t tell if it was relief, exhaustion, or something else.

“Alright, honey. We can go home.”

––––

After the whirlwind of the shopping mall, their tiny living room felt like the safest place on earth. Evan dumped his coat and sneakers next to the door and ran for the couch. He grabbed the blanket draped across the couch’s back and cocooned himself in it, letting the cloth’s soft texture rub against his cheek soothingly.

They had decided on the car ride home that a cozy movie would be the best way to recover from the outing, so while Evan got comfortable on the couch, his mom hurried into the kitchen in search of popcorn.

Soon the popping and whirring sounds in the kitchen stopped, and his mom sat down beside him and placed a big bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

“What movie do you want to watch?”

Evan glanced over the little shelf of DVDs next to their TV.

“We could run to the library to pick up something if you wanted, if you want something different.”

“No . . .” Evan kept browsing the small collection until his eyes landed on one wedged into the corner. He unwrapped the blanket from around himself and grabbed the DVD off the shelf. “Could we watch this?”

His mom chuckled. “Narnia? That isn’t a Christmas movie!”

“It has snow in it! Please, Mom?”

“Sure, why not.” She smiled, laughing playfully. “Go ahead and put it in.”

Evan slipped the DVD into the player, grabbed the remote, and scampered back to the couch just in time to snuggle up against his mom as the title music began to play.

When the music lulled as the opening credits began, Evan shifted slightly so he could look at his mom. Her eyes were on the movie, her hair still messy and falling from its bun. Her face looked more relaxed than this morning, though, and the soft lights of the Christmas tree reflected in her eyes.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Evan?”

“Thanks for . . . for not leaving too.”

His mom wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close, giving him a firm kiss on the forehead. “Your mom isn’t going anywhere. No matter what.”

Evan closed his eyes and cuddled closer. This time, the tears that pricked his eyes weren’t just because of sadness. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”

“Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @thatfriendlyanon if you wanna say hi, see more stuff like moodboards/playlists/whatnot, or just pop by. thank you for reading! <3


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